unfortunately I agree with you with regard to the BBC, (it was never a pleasant or safe / secure place for younger folk to work at in the production side (engineering was marginally better, but they would be first to get the chop when times got hard). I would point out the commercial sector has abandoned the youth market since the start of the economic depression; as skint young people won’t buy the stuff off the adverts they cannot get the ad revenue they expect via “specialist music shows”.

Added to which, the demands of copyright reporting authorities EU wide make the kind of spontaneous mixed music programme that youngsters who like EDM non-compliant; often because even if the broadcaster pays the fees, the style of the shows breaks other rules (such as those against “mashups” and “bootlegs”).

Also listening to linear radio via a mobile device is really only feasible for those in an affluent area; anywhere else and the mobile network will not support the data rate required. I found this out by experiment; as soon as I go to a less affluent area of town there is nothing, although normal calls and texts (which bring the mobile company more revenue for the same data transmitted) work OK.

At least we still have our community radio station, but that is suffering funding issues. The problem is whilst the demand for linear radio still exists amongst young people and is to some extent filled by online stations, it is no longer really an industry where you can make a sustainable living. if you are very young, have a second day job with flexible hours or are older and retired it is possible to present a show or two; but the “golden age” where producers and engineers got premium salaries is gone and never coming back. Today I get paid twice as much as a network/telecoms engineer than I did as a broadcast engineer, and its an in house salaried job rather than having to constantly hustle for freelance work and short term contracts.